Today’s world is all about connectivity. It defines the presence of an individual or an organization. While there has been a lot going on in terms of brand image creation within the global arena, many new scopes of branding have come up in recent times. The companies and organizations have been working towards expanding the social reach in the recent years. They have opted of placement consultants for this purpose also. Interestingly, this initiative can be greatly supported by employees themselves. Featuring company’s employees as brand advocates is trending in the corporate world. Last year, tech giant IBM had hit the headlines for its #NewWayToWork campaign wherein 1000 employees of the company were enrolled as brand advocates on social media platforms which generated an impressive 141,000 clicks and was also awarded the Viral Marketing Campaign of the Year by Annual American Business Awards of 2015. This campaign had greatly helped the brand to get the word out to masses. Hence the advantages of employees as brand advocates cannot be overlooked.
- What is inevitably the most advantageous point in this regard is the greater reach among the masses. While a company page in a social platform is expected to have certain enthusiasts, personal employee pages with the employer name reaches out to their corresponding networks. It has been seen that the reach gets amplified by 24 times in this regard.
- This increases the engagement towards the brand as a whole. While a company page is more formal, an individual page is more of a personal outlook to the people looking at it. Hence, people tend to relate better in this case.
- It builds in a better trust worthy image. Company profiles as often looked as a toll for selling the product basket. While the employee profiles are more reliable and relatable at the same time as it represents a personal opinion.
- Building trust directly influences sales figures. It is a normal human tendency that people go for a product when recommended by a friend or a trusted individual. The company can directly benefit from these personal recommendations and information sharing.
While we talk about the advantages of employees as brand advocates, there are a few things that need to be considered and facilitated for such initiative.
- The basic knowledge is very important in this regard. The employees who are to be put in this initiative have to be educated about the brand in a proper way. This is crucial as in most cases the employees are not fully aware of this information.
- The objectives and end results of such programmes should be clearly stated before the initiation so that the employees know the final outcome and work on how to achieve it.
- Knowledge of the various social media platforms in crucial in this regard and in many cases though people know how to use them on personal grounds, they might not be fully aware regarding the same on a professional level. Training sessions might be beneficial in this regard.
Lastly, for better engagement in such activities, a reward system or compensation structure is helpful to keep up the spirits of the employees associated.
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